JI will make Karachi safe for Altaf’s return: Siraj

KARACHI: Jamat-e-Islami (JI) chief Senator Siraj ul Haq on Monday said his party wants to transform Karachi into a city where even Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain can come back without being afraid of anything.

Addressing a press conference here at party’s Karachi headquarters, Siraj said by-polls in NA-246 were not a battle ground and the JI wants to play a friendly match in this arena.

The JI chief said the port city has witnessed hundreds of strikes but, unfortunately, not a single one of them was in connection with issues being faced by the people. “All these strikes were staged solely to serve the interest of one particular political party,” he added.

“Presently Karachi is being represented in the National Assembly only by two paties - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and MQM”, Siraj pointed out, adding, ‘therefore, the people of Karachi should vote for and elect JI from NA-246 by-polls’.

“If the government can verify 70 million sims in a matter of few days then why can’t it install bio-metric system in the polling stations of NA-246”, the JI chief questioned.

He said Karachi has remained under the occupation of the MQM for a very long time, alleging that so far it has only been selection in city but now it is high time a real election should be held.

Siraj said this time around JI would not let anyone enjoy Halwa (desert) by boycotting the by-polls.